The Death of Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich

international | arts and media | news report

Friday April 27, 2007 13:30

by obit

The death of Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich the world famed cellist hsa been reported. He was 80 years of age. With his passing the age of great cellists ends. It is odd that this week the world has turned to writing obituaries of Boris Yeltsin and recalling the foiled coup d'etat attempt which brought Yeltsin to prominence. But many will not know that Rostropovich known as Slava to his students, admirers and friends was one of the key figures within Moscow's government buildings who inspired Yeltsin to climb up on the tank. If Slava had climbed up on the tank - things would have been different. He was a master who knew that. May he rest in Peace.

He led. He brought us to tears, joy, passion, love, life & art. Always for Liberty. RIP

The 20th century saw intepretation, teaching, and performance of the instrument shared between 2 towering figures. The former the Catalan Pau Casals followed the 2nd Spanish republic into exile. The latter lived at first under the tyranny of the Soviet Empire and then later as chosen performer of the works of Shostakovich became a musical voice for freedom.

Rostropovitch was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, then part of the Soviet Union. From 1943 to 1948, he studied at the Moscow Conservatory under such luminaries as Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev. He was to form a life long friendship with Shostakovich being chosen to premier or conduct many of his works. By doing such all his life he also ensured the suffering of artists and intellectuals under the Soviet Empire and thus the suffering and oppression of all peoples under that empire were not to be forgotten.

(c/f http://indymedia.ie/article/75095 )

Rostropovitch became professor of cello in Moscow in 1956. His career had been meteoritic : "Rostropovich gave his first cello concert in 1942. He won first prize at the international Music Awards of Prague and Budapest in 1947, 1949 and 1950. In 1950, at the age of 23 he was awarded what was then considered the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, the Stalin Prize. At that time, Rostropovich was already well known in his country and while actively pursuing his solo career, he taught at the Leningrad Conservatory (now Saint-Petersburg) and the Moscow Conservatory. In 1955, he married Galina Vishnevskaya, soprano at the Bolshoi Theatre.

As such Rostropovich had risen to the peak of the Soviet artistic meritocracy but like many of his heros was to suffer alienation and persecution.

His international career began in the early 1960's with tours of the then West Germany as conductor of the Bolshoi Ballet. This was a time of defections when the Ballet was filled with many talented and not unbeautiful young people of high intelligence, skill, stamina and ability.

As key members of the securocracy of the West went to Moscow to the embarrassment of Western states and organisations such as MI6, DGSE and the CIA. The West tempted dancers and artists to linger on past their concert dates.

Rostropovich was never a traitor to either his country or its state. Nor could Rostropovich ever be desscribed as a dupe of either world system then locked in the stalemate and proxy conflicts of the Cold War era. Rather Mstislav Rostropovich became a beacon for freedom, democracy and Art without borders.

His friendship with the dissident Soviet writer, historian and dramatist Alexander Solzhenitsyn (born 1918) was perhaps the association which brought the Soviet Authorities to revoke his citizenship in 1978. But by that stage Rostropovich,his wife and children had already made their home in the USA where his influence would soon make its mark on a generation of musicians and artists most notably at the Juliard School and in Washington DC.

Rostropovich had an instinct or a need to be a the right place and the right time. Or perhaps to help make the wrong place and wrong time the correct one.

In 1989 on November 9th, the wall which had divided Berlin into "West" and "East" was taken apart by the citizens of Berlin. This was one of the most important events of modern history. Yet its true importance is so often overlooked. Neither side planned or organised the event. Neither Bush (senior) nor Gorbachev had any inkling that the wall would be demolished by the people. The events which led up to the destruction of the barrier had included a press conference by a then minister of East Germany (DDR) who accidently said his government no longer saw a need for the wall. A simple mistake would be the first note of a symphony of liberty. Within 100 hours the Berlin Wall was nothing more than a souvenir. And on the rubble Mistlav Rostropovich played his cello "the 1711 Duport Stradivarius", a simple box of wood with metal strings which is still a mystery of acoustic engineering which may give voice to angels. http://indymedia.ie/article/62069

In his final years Slava won many awards and glittering ribbons.

Included were :-
Genuine admiration.
Sincere respect.
the French Legion of Honour.
Enough honorary doctorates from universities to write really good prescriptions.
An ambassadorship for the UNESCO, he supported many educational and cultural projects. Rostropovich became a close friend of Queen Sofia of Spain and picked up all their gongs.
But showed special delight to receive the Jordi Cross from the government of Catalonia (its highest reward) the second cellist to recieve their highest honour (the first being Pau Casals).
[This obituary writer helped in the translation of his acceptance speech & still considers it a great honour to have exchanged short correspondence and enjoyed allbeit brief contact with the man & his beliefs, passion and commitment & play a small part in ensuring his music, the music of Casals, the music of Shostakovich be understood for what it was and is. A global language of both philosophical and spiritual value - the essence of Art - without which we may never build a free society.]

Art without Borders!

May He Rest in Peace & Liberty.
You Sir passed your Torch .:.

last link to an interview on Artists' responsibiities in the face of Tyranny or Oppression

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Comments (11 of 11)

the overwhelming eperience of being Slava'd......

by RIP

Fri Apr 27, 2007 13:57

"Rostropovich was artistic to his fingertips. His various dwellings were full of beautiful objects, many of them chosen to remind him of his homeland and its history. In private, he was passionate, extrovert, volatile and voluble. Theatre people speak of being "Trevved" by Trevor Nunn, who famously enfolds friends in massive embraces. Musical folk found the experience of being "Slava'd" even more overwhelming - it involved being kissed on both cheeks and being made to feel that, for a few moments at least, you were the only person in his life."

:- from his obituary in The Guardian newspaper
http://music.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2067016....html

The Russian state might at end been Slava'd too.... (he's being given back all his honour & awards and new ones too. The closest Putin gets to hugging)

"Rostropovich was submitted to a surgical operation early last March and was later discharged from the Centre for further recuperation at the Barvikha Sanatorium outside Moscow. He went from there to the Kremlin on March 27 to be present at his last birthday party – the reception given on the occasion of the musician’ s eightieth birthday. President Vladimir Putin had then pinned an order “For Merits to the Fatherland” (First Class) to the musician’s lapel. The Head of State described the hero of the day “as an outstanding musician and remarkable personality”. Everything he took in his hands, be it a cello bow or a conductor’s baton, was marked by extraordinary talent,” Putin noted at the reception. “We know that Mstislav Rostropovich is called a man of the world. This is absolutely true. But we also know how sensitive he is to everything linked with Russia and how he loves his country. Many people, who are in power or in the spotlight, are fond of Rostropovich’s gifted performances. But the ordinary people’s love for him is the source of his own strength,” Putin stressed."
:- from the report of his death on Itar Tass Russian News
http://itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11479074&PageNum=0

extract from speech by Msitslav Rostropovich 26th May 1992 - references to the Moscow coup.

by iosaf

Fri Apr 27, 2007 14:48

. Some are born to create, others to consume, yet more for phsyical work, a newer group to invent, but all follow the program which is introduced at birth. Within the catagory of creators there are people whose character carries the beauty of life. Beauty and Culture so that all the other people have a spiritual dimension elevating thier life. It is a stimulus from God. Mozart for example, had such, and through this "magma" was able to give the world a marvellous opera, a symphony. But nothing is given for free. Stimulus, talent has to be educated, has to be worked on. And to do so thoroughly, giving it all possible energy. When talent, energy and will do not go together there is a block and no positive result can be achieved.

Man is also his own making. This is something that youth has to learn and society must adopt and not just presume that well-being and freedom come alone but rather as the fruit of effort. And despite everything, I believe that a person must stop themselves from ever thinking that they have achieved their final objective, feeling themselves secure and thus rest. As Leon Tolstoy said, we must reach towards our objective our ideal as if we were chasing a banner that we carry ourselves.

I have worked hard and I still do. If when I was young I had more time to work at preparation, now,even though I do many more concerts, I dedicate more time now than before to preparing myself, fundamentally at cost of hours of sleep. One always works under the same mystery the same unknown, if you know well how to begin, it is difficult to predict what will happen after. When I begin to interpret a work, of whichever composer, in a concert, be it that I am playing or that I am conducting, it is as if one had begun to build a house, a good part depends on how it was begun. A little afterwards, I see the end of the work, towards which I am building a bridge and to which I will arrive after all the crashes that may take place along the way. And every concert, every time, even with the same work, is different. And you have to work and educate yourself because God has given you this talent in order to give it to others.

It is here that a terible interference may occur, that you are not allowed to do this job or give it to your brothers. This is when you are deprived of freedom. These are the dictatorships, which oblige you to work, but they impede you being what you want to be, at what you want to be. The worst thing about dictatorships is that in destroying freedom, they put limits on the expression of talent.
But what is freedom? A lot of people have asked this and often with the intention of destroying it. I shall tell you what it is, it is something that the birds possess. A bird may land on whatever branch of whatever tree without permission or passport. No-one will tell it that that tree is not his and that he can only sing in another tree. Liberty consists of each person finding his own place among the people and doing good.

I shall try as example to give you a story. A true story in which I played the lead which began the evening of the nineteenth of August last year. That night I heard about the coup in Moscow while i was in my apartment in Paris. I was horrified looking at and listening to the news, whilst awaiting the broadcast of the press conference of the junta that had led the coup. I understood that the cursed terror that had reigned for more than seventy years in my country was returning.

I closed my eyes, and heard in the depth of my own being the sound of the 8th Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovitch. The music was a quiet, devasting evocation of the inhuman suffering of its composer. That which I feared, was the return of times in which that music had been written, times of lies, trickery, and the undermining of human dignity. I understood, in that most mystic moment. that I was being called by a power it was useless for me to resist. The following morning I returned to Moscow and went to the Parliament building, where I would spend the three following days, during which I felt, as I had never before in my life the spirit of Christ.

In the course of that first night, whilst we waited for the imminent attack, we were sure of the inevitability of death. There were more than 30,000 unarmed people defending those of us who had voluntarily closed ourselves in the Parliament building. But compared to the combined forces of KGB, militia & army, united as they were, with the presence of their ministers in the junta, what were they? It rained all the night, and the fog surrounded the roofs. As we were to know later, the attack had been planned with helicopters to place soldiers on the terrace of the building. But the fog and gusts of wind averted this plan. Doubtless the junta had not paid attention to the fact that they had planned the coup for the day of the Holy Feast of the Transfiguration. I am sure that we were saved only by the intervention of higher forces. There are no words to express the spectre of emotion that I felt during those three days. The three happiest days of my life. Days of unity between faith and my people."

_________________________________________________________

Today many readers will hopefully have learnt the name of one of the great musicians and teachers of the 20th century. Hopefully they will try and listen to some of the music he played.
Civilisation is not just about Leaders, Treaties, Political Parties or Missile Shields. It has a lot to do with the sort of people who are brainy enough not to believe in anything higher than monkeydom but do. You'll notice they are often the dancers and musicians.

- He's gone to super-musician Heaven now - it exists just for people like him. & we will never allow it to be destroyed. RIP

I'm sorry for the quality of that extract above - but the description of the Coup 1991 is faithful.

Fri Apr 27, 2007 15:22

It's from one of 7 translation drafts which saw his original speech given in Spanish then archived by the Catalan government in 1992 as a Catalan translation & then get dragged back into English in the last 3 years. There are a few obvious glitches. I apologise for them.

I was "Slava'd" in 1998 in London - I had done nothing particularly worthy of being "Slava'd" other than organising a chance for his public to meet him and wander off with signed books, photos and CD's.
There was a double motive - it was my job at the time to sell culture industrial products & I felt the best way to subvert that was ensure the performers I was promoting got to do "super-star" shite & rub the paws of their fans, customers and completely against the rules - make their own recordings of the music. & little known to the corporation who employed me - students and poorer fans walked off with CD packs which had escaped through the accounting. Slava set aside three boxes of his recordings for "free distribution" - a lot of poorer fans went home happy.

Today a hero has died. Yet I feel remarkably little sadness - I just remember being "Slava'd" - squeezed till I squeeked - feeling an energy which I suppose brings so many thousands to want the embrace of a Hindu guru or suchlike character. But with Rostropovitch you had no need of learning obscure ancient sanskrit texts beforehand. The hug came as the natural consequence and earthing of the music. Years later I got "Slava'd" again - but not by Rostropovitch just by ordinary Russians over a pot of Borsht stew, a bottle of vodka and a recording of Shostakovitch's Cello Concerto with of course Slava performing. They cried, they jumped in the air, they squeezed me till I squeeked.

Slava someone today!

enough said.

Iosaf

by R.oisin

Fri Apr 27, 2007 15:26

'enough said.'

Indeed. Why post under three different names on the one thread?

R.oisin s you know "obit" is a shared pseudonym used by at least 3 regular contributors

Fri Apr 27, 2007 16:05

which we use to introduce deaths of characters who are interesting for their political contribution, circumstanes of their death or worthy of our admiration for their contribution to Culture, counter-culture, History or our various struggles. We use "obit" for the article authorship & it's established now we share that. The comments included my personal take on the importance of the man & saw me run off into my files to find his words. I was surprised to find them thinking them deleted long ago. Perhaps I should have waited a while and put all the text up as one article.

I've only twice written obits on these pages using another name - for the philosophers Ricoeur and Derrida. http://www.indymedia.ie/article/69930 http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66979 which were published under the name "yb". Sorry R.oisin - I just jumped at it too quickly. My conviction that no matter what you might think by reading RTE or the Irish Times - the people of Ireland aren't philistines yet. I know that one other Irish reader (if not contributor) got Slava'd too. I hope they log on and describe it. If I could - I'd Slava you.

Obits

by C.

Fri Apr 27, 2007 16:57

You can actually tell the difference between the obit contributors if you look at
the threads, some of them are laden with awful spelling mistakes and bad links.

RIP :-Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich.

Has the service got an art/counterculture and review section ?

There were a lot of contributions when the site crashed and established art
is fulsomely and tediously covered in the mainstream media.

Readers can enjoy and scoff at many reports on Counter Culture in our archives

by huggy squeeze alive iosaf

Fri Apr 27, 2007 19:32

Here's a short selection of individuals who stood astride both accepted culture and counter-culture.
the death of Gonzo or Hunter S. Thomson -http://www.indymedia.ie/article/68704?condense_comments...=true
this death was so good its anniversary saw a properly written feature article which could remind many Junior Certificate students how to spell the language of Shakespeare properly conveniently ignoring the fact that Shakespeare himself lived 150 years before standardised spelling.
http://indymedia.ie/article/74399

For some strange reason many such characters only arrive on our site when they die. The obvious exception being Hoffman who at 101 years of age is still going strong.
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/73750

One of his acolytes Robert Anton Wilson had the fnordish good sense to die on Hoffman's 101st birthday. The death of Robert Anton Wilson -
http://indymedia.ie/article/80939&comment_limit=0&conde...false

Some mainstream characters who had been forgotten by the mainstream have also been introduced to readers "so we all know where we coming from"

The death of "suburban mother" Betty Friedan
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/74121

The death of "bus passenger" Rosa Parks
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/72652

the death of "don't go putting wires in my brain" Syd Barrett
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/77170

As our newspapers filled with the death of CJ Haughey & prepared for his state funeral which the people of Donnycarney ignored we had 3 little deaths reported.

the death of "peasant harpist" Raymond Devos
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76648
the death of " I look like a vampire" Ligeti
http://indymedia.ie/article/76595
20 years after the death of "I didn't get out enough" Borges
http://indymedia.ie/article/76615

the death of "I'm not forgetting you" Simon Wiesenthal
http://indymedia.ie/article/72072

the death of "we're not forgetting you" James Maley at 99 one of the last veterans of the Spanish Civil War International Brigades
http://indymedia.ie/article/81910

Some of those who died weren't great or counter-cultural they simply did their bit to make sure the Soviets got the bomb.... The death of the Melita Norwood the Bexleyheath Bolshevik (little sweetie) http://indymedia.ie/article/70566

another example of a woman most people never appreciated for her most wondrous reasons or career was Alicia Markova http://www.indymedia.ie/article/67785?&condense_comment...false
another such delightful little lady (if perhaps nosey yet discreet) was Sidonie Goossens http://www.indymedia.ie/article/67963?userlanguage=ga&s...=true

John Mc Guffin an Irish anarchist, bank robber and dude of Derry was the first obit.
http://indymedia.ie/article/2824

Some obits caused great division and differing opinions.

Croc Man Steve Irwin
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/78204
Mo Mowlam
http://indymedia.ie/article/71599
Lawlor
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/72600

Some seemed to be welcomed -
Pinochet http://www.indymedia.ie/article/80021
Stroessner http://www.indymedia.ie/article/77915
"no more deaths on our streets" http://www.indymedia.ie/article/72010?include_comments=...=true

Some were just special people like Origami master Akira Yoshizawa.
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/67792?&condense_comment...false
Some were weird - Arafat http://www.indymedia.ie/article/67424?condense_comments...=true
___________________________________________________________________
Some such as Fidel Castro or Ariel Sharon just didn't happen. did they?

As one of those constant offenders against orthographic norms ( I honestly can't spell & my spell-checker isn't set to English) I think lines like "the father of deconstruction has turned to decomposition" at the death of Derrida make up for slips of vowels and consonants.
If an "establishment" figure has featured on the list of Obits - at least information which is not readily available in commercial media reports is included. Thus you now know about Slava in his own words during the coup d'etat attempt of 1991.
Of course there were loads of other obituaries & there will be loads more - those above are just some of those I appreciated reading or writing. & yes - I cringe when I look back at my own spelling.

Let's all Rest In Peace & exchange a Hug.

Slava playing for the Berlin Wall rubble

by -

Sat Apr 28, 2007 02:12

The civilised world is saying goodbye.
Liberation in France offers this video on you tube.
http://www.libe.fr/culture/musique/250400.FR.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPRDU_KIuZI&eurl=http%3A...2Ephp

The Daily Telegraph reminds everyone Putin (the funny one) phoned him up when he assembled the most crowned heads of state on Russian soil for since the October revolution. It was one of his one of his chitchats and singsongs and Putin wanted to give him the Peter the Great medal - nobody had got that since 1917. "hugs all round". they then had a go at him for unfairly exposing a colleague in the global intelligence community when he went a bit daft in the USA during the beginning of the dark times. They then jump up to him getting through the wall demolishment and then singsong in Moscow (& he didn't tell his wife he was going off to save the world, reunite Germany or end the Soviet Union). They then like almost all reasonably if not rabidly righwing civilised newspapers finally agree : that everyone agrees - there was only Slava & not enough people know.

The New York Times tells us of his own 2005 recordings with destruction rights at the madeleine church of the complete Bach cello suites and his UNICEF kids with HIV AIDS thing. He complained that British airways charged him to transport the Strad 1711 (which was played by one of Beethoven's own chamber music group) on Concorde - But AirFrance didn't. So I suppose no surprise he chose to buy a gaff in Paris. Everyone has a story. There are poorly paid music critics clawing over each others backs to get a huggy story in print. Even some of the more conservative and thinly populated states of our empire are going to see some mention of Slava. He spun every way. "El Pais" in Spain has offered a three dimensional guide to the cello people can play with on screen if they don't know what they are. Reassure themselves a cellist isn't dangerous. They'll never be allowed rescue a Strad. He said many times he had more friends in heaven.

but he didn't too badly here.
& he leftt you a lot of music and it seems a you tube vid. of 1'11 duration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPRDU_KIuZI&eurl=http%3A...2Ephp

pics in this article are good too

Sat Apr 28, 2007 12:38

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2491814.ece

Brilliant obit, by indy.ie (obit) many, many friends have read it and enjoyed the
quality of the writing. Culture and art /counterculture and review section would be
more than welcome on this site.

They are inadequately represented and all over the newswire.

Some of you need to understand a mysterious secret about the Strad 1711 & learn about good magic.

Sat Apr 28, 2007 13:39

I want readers who aren't classically trained or interested to appreciate the symbolism and magical power of the short act (which lasted a long time) recorded in the youtube link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPRDU_KIuZI&eurl=http%3A...2Ephp

The place was Checkpoint Charlie the border post of the USA and the USSR in Berlin where the US and USSR had brought tanks within 46 to 91 metres of each other and almost brought us to WW3 (& split NATO) from 5 pm on the 27th of October 1961 till about 1am the following day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkpoint_Charlie#Tank_st...d-off

"you generally learn that for Junior Cert History"

By the time the 1711 Stradivarius got played at Checkpoint Charlie by a Russian not a single cop, soldier or thicky was saying "move along there".

There are very few objects of such transcendent power. THe same year (1796) that Beethoven began to suffer his deafness that cello joined his chamber music group for a five month tour. But simply opening the box and showing the Stradivarius will not expel the demons. It will get them a bit nervous though & they may just start tying their bootlaces.

The most observant will see the scratch in the varnish on the ribs which was caused by Napoleon the Emperor's spurs in 1812 when he like the monster he had become - tried to release the angel's voice. ""How the devil do you hold this thing, Monsieur Duport?" Duport was so obviously afraid that Napoleon would damage it, that Napoleon laughingly returned it to the cellist's more careful hands. Actually, Napoleon had made a small dent in the ribs of the cello, which may still be seen in the "Duport Strad" today."

Next comes the tuning.

from 440 megaHerz all 4 strings are arranged to vibrate in a perfect 5th.

Then you take a slender piece of wood with horsehair wiped in tree resin & release the angel.

obviously magic is very difficult. but look what you can do with it......

Bring down mickey mouse & the iron curtain & reunite Germany.

If I were offered the chance to use some of the most magical tools humanity have ever seen made - I would choose the Duport 1711 over a Masamune Ozaki Katana sword.

- there are theories for the exception quality of Stradivarius instruments, rather like Masamune Ozaki's swords they proved to be the template all craftsmen would copy thereafter but their freakishness is now thought to owe as much to the impurities of the material used in their constructions. The wood used by the Stradivarius family no longer grows just as the metal ore wrought by Masamune Ozaki is no longer to be mined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duport_Strad They are more than just expensive status symbols.

The Russians will keep us safe & despite their sufferings have always kept us safe.

We call this "trust".

There will be no more serious talk about weapon shields - star wars - or a US 21st century.
As long as Slava (which is Russian for "Glory") is remembered and his magic taught.
Now I promise I won't add any more at all. I'm going to play Bach.... "badly but I try", knowing the secrets of both Strad & Hatana I thus realise which one defends us better. And now you all do too.

you've been Slava'd!

the Strad 1711 Cello - Slava - Russia - Checkpoint Charlie - Mickey Mouse - Germany - One Iron Curtain turned into Souvenirs

RIP

by Paul

Tue Mar 25, 2008 09:47

priggs86035 at yahoo dot com

Mr Rostropovitch was a great man who influenced my cello style. It's now rare to see a person who puts his heart into his music. I hope that I don't waste his influence. I saw him in Tempe at Gammage, I was star strucked, it was an awesome encounter, although I was quiet. The beautiful music plays will be missed.. Rest in Peace..

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The Death of Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich

Comments (11 of 11)